Label Review. 

2019 album. Rap / Hip Hop. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

The New York, Brooklyn, hip-hop duo of DJ Premier and MC Guru aka Gang Star, were one of the most influential MC and DJ tandem of the 1990s, and set new standards for East Coast rap, mixing their poetic hip-hop with adventurous jazzy beats with laid back rhymes. Over the course of their distinguished career, they became a cultural institution and a brand you could ultimately trust. With a handful of indelible classic albums on their resume, DJ Premier and Guru’s catalogue has not only persevered but mastered the test of time. Simply, Gang Starr did not follow trends, they created them. 

And now the dynamic duo are back with their first album in 16 years ‘One Of The Best Yet’ released into a very different hip hop landscape to their last album 2003’s ‘The Ownerz’. Though rapper Guru died in 2010 DJ Premier avoids the usual pitfalls of posthumous releases, deploying neat verses and brilliant production tricks.

Though they never “officially” disbanded after the release of their last project (The Ownerz 2003), Premier and Guru still remained infinitely connected to each other even as they embarked on solo paths.Premier won three Grammy’s along the way and assisted in turning fast rising artists such as Nas, Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G. and many others into rap royalty; and his imprint included work with artists such as Drake, Christina Aguilera, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Mac Miller, The Game, Ludacris, Maroon 5, Common, Mos Def, Rakim, KRS-One, Janet Jackson, D’Angelo, DJ Khaled, Joey Bada$$, Royce 5’9, Twenty One Pilots , and Miley Cyrus ; all of which spoke to his diversity and ability to traverse genres

.In turn, Guru would go on to release his own quartet of highly influential Jazzmatazz projects.

In the interim, fans always clamored for another Gang Starr album. Though there were whispers and murmurs over the years, nothing ever panned out and the possibilities of that project being willed into existence seemingly grew more remote as the years passed by. After Guru tragically passed away in 2010 the hope seemed to vanish altogether. The one person who refused to give hope was DJ Premier.

In September 2019, Premier announced the return of Gang Starr with the group’s first song since 2003, “Family and Loyalty” featuring J. Cole. DJ Premier began crafting ‘One of the Best Yet’ in 2017, and he said in a statement he always believed the project would come to fruition, even after Guru’s death in 2010. “I never lost faith, or wavered,” he said. “I still felt it inside of me, it just happened to be nine years later [after Guru’s passing]. We all want the things we want right now, but I am a patient guy. I hung in there and I just kept believing.”

'One Of The Best Yet' is many things. Yes, it’s the first new Gang Starr album in sixteen years and it is a historic event to be celebrated and rejoiced, but it symbolises much more than that. 

'One Of The Best Yet' further cements Gang Starr’s legacy. This literal gift of an album not only harkens you back to Gang Starr’s seminal work of the past, but it re-establishes their impact in a modern-day perspective.

Tracks Listing: ‘The Sure Shot’ (Intro) / ‘Lights Out” feat. M.O.P. / ‘Bad Name’ / ‘Hit Man’ feat. Q-Tip / What’s Real’ feat. Group Home & Royce Da 5’9” / ‘Keith Casim Elam’ (Interlude) / ‘From A Distance’ feat. Jeru The Damaja / ‘Family and Loyalty” feat. J. Cole / ‘Get Together’ feat. Ne-Yo & Nitty Scott / ‘NYGz/ GS 183rd’ (Interlude) / ‘So Many Rappers’ / ‘Business Or Art’ feat. Talib Kweli / ‘Bring It Back Here’ / ‘One Of The Best Yet’ (Big Shug Interlude) / Take Flight’ (Militia Pt. 4) feat. Big Shug & Freddie Foxxx / ‘Bless The Mic’

Label Review.

2019 debut album. Folk.

Our Overview.

Mishra are a global folk outfit gathering momentum on the UK scene. With strong roots in U.K folk, the collective add influences from Indian classical, Americana, and jazz to their repertoire, quite simply original music that defies definition and which is already bringing them deserved awards recognition from just under two years of performing.

Formed in 2017 of the creative partnership led by Kate Griffin’s voice and inimitable clawhammer banjo and driven by Ford Collier’s continent-hopping instrumental skills (Indian tabla, African calabash, Irish whistle and guitar), they won Cambridge Folk Festival’s first ever Christian Raphael prize and in separate projects were both shortlisted for the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards.

Both already accomplished folk musicians (The Drystones and The Unsung Roots) 2018 saw them play Sidmouth Folk Week, Cambridge Folk Festival, Priddy Folk Festival and many more. Until 2019, Mishra performed as a duo under the name Kate Griffin and Ford Collier; their sound has now been further underpinned by the addition of versatile jazz-folk double-bassist and bouzouki player Joss Mann-Hazell. Mishra’s debut album also features accomplished tabla player John Ball, whose contribution allows a full band sound on live-inthe- room analogue recordings of their uniquely accessible Indo-folk.

For ‘The Loft Tapes’, Joss Mann-Hazell and John Ball join Kate and Ford for seven quartet tracks and four trio tracks, all of which are recorded live-in-the-room, in the loft of a farmhouse in Gloucestershire, to analogue tape. The process of capturing whole performances of the band playing together, and the warmth and incredibly realistic sound of tape compared to digital recording make each track a snapshot of a particular time and place; a musical moment suspended in time.

Track Listing: Intro / Road Dust And Honey / Chase The Sparrowhawk / Deep Seas / Beautifully Blind / Angeline The Baker / Jog For Joy / Taru Taru / Keep Your Kindness / Scarlet Town / Ring In The Changes / Morphology

Label Review.

1968 debut album. Sundazed.

Our Overview.

Canadian-American jazz rock group Blood, Sweat and Tears’ classic debut album! Although the band - whose are noted for their combination of brass and rock band instrumentation- would later achieve mainstream pop success and burst on to the pop playlists with three million sellers in 1969, Blood, Sweat and Tears’ seminal 1968 debut ‘Child Is Father To The Man’ is generally acknowledged as the band’s greatest and most adventurous work.

‘Child Is Father To The Man’ is a concept album with very eclectic material and the group’s only album under the leadership of founding keyboardist/singer Al Kooper, this one-of-a-kind classic features a unique psychedelic/jazz/blues/ classical fusion, with the FM radio hits ‘I Can’t Quit Her’ and ‘I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know,’ along with unique interpretations of songs by Tim Buckley, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Carole King. Cut by Kevin Gray and pressed at RTI on red vinyl!

Track Listing: Overture / I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know / Morning Glory / My Days Are Numbered / Without Her / Just One Smile / I Can’t Quit Her / Meagan’s Gypsy Eyes / Something’ Goin’ On / House In The Country / The Modern Adventures Of Plato, Diogenes And Freud / So Much Love/Underture

Label Review.

2019 album. Jazz.

Our Overview.

When three of the best jazz musicians of their generation get in the studio to record an album of some of their favourite tunes you know the outcome is going to be something pretty special. For their second album on Jellymould, British jazz heavyweights Stan Sulzmann and Nikki Iles arejoined by a very special guest - their friend and legendary double bass player Dave Holland.

It is over 20 years since Stan Sulzmann and Nikki Iles recorded their first album together. Since then these two outstanding musicians have become stalwarts of the British jazz scene. They have composed original, critically acclaimed music for various ensembles both live and on record and played with some of the biggest names in the jazz world including John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler,Vince Mendoza and Anthony Braxton.

Double bass legend Dave Holland needs no introduction. Plucked from the house band at Ronnie’s to join Miles Davis’ band at the tender age of 22 he has an international career leading his own all-star bands and working with a who’s who of artists including Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz and Joe Henderson.The nine tracks on ‘Lush Life’ are a beautiful collection of unusual “standards” and four originals, two each from Stan and Nikki, who have contributed short liner notes to the tunes explaining why they were included on the album. From the opening track “You Don’t Know What Love Is” - included because of Stan’s love of Billie Holiday’s rendition - to “Between Moons” by John Taylor, an influential friend to all the artists on the record, to the final title track “Lush Life” you can hear in the recording how much these three stellar musicians enjoy making music.

Personnel: Stan Sulzmann - Tenor Saxophone, Nikki Iles - Piano, Dave Holland - Double Bass.

Track Listing: You Don’t Know What Love Is / Who Can I Turn To / Between Moons / Pip / Iris / The Night We Called It A Day / Odonata / Moontide / Lush Life

Label Review.

2019 album also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

Will Samson is releasing ‘Paralanguage’ his fifth album Across his previous releases Will has experimented with electronica, folktronica, ambient and a more guitar-friendly aesthetic - Paralanguage finds him exploring and assuredly consolidating these various styles on a album inspired by his experiences over the preceding years. Will Samson still remembers his first - and only - experiments with psilocybin. For some time, following the death of his father in 2012, the British musician had suffered from mild PTSD, unable to process the grief provoked by the sudden nature of his passing. It took him several years, however, before he feltconfident enough to explore the possibilities this popular compound was said to offer.

Finally, he and his girlfriend retreated to the countryside for a day.Samson’s fifth album, ‘Paralanguage’ - his first for Wichita Recordings - was in many ways inspired by his subsequent experiences and seeks to emulate them too. Indeed, vocals for two tracks, ‘Ochre Alps’ and ‘Flowerbed’, which he’d been struggling to finish for a number of months, were written and recorded over two subsequent afternoons spent micro-dosing.

Perhaps not surprisingly, ‘Paralanguage’ - the title chosen because the album’s central themes address the way “our bodies, not just our minds, hold memories and emotions” - is Samson’s most cohesive album to date. There’s a conspicuously tender thread running through its eight songs, from ‘Calescent’, itseloquently poignant opener, to ‘Lacuna’’s fuzzy nostalgia, from ‘Beyond The Dust’’s sweet serenity to ‘The Smallest Sliver’’s redemptive fragility. Samson’s voice, too, has never sounded more moving, committed or confident, his yearning falsetto as touching as his gentle tenor - comparisons to Sufjan Stevens and Patrick Watson are not inappropriate - while his arrangements are intricate yet never ostentatious, with precisely detailed programming inseparable from the warmth of his analogue instrumentation. “Perhaps,” Samson observes, “it's a reflection of feeling more centred and grounded.”

Recorded largely in his home studio in Brussels - the first time he’s had a space exclusively devoted to his music - ‘Paralanguage’ finds Samson reunited with regular collaborator Beatrijs De Klerck, a violinist who also plays with A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Christina Vantzou. Ben Lester, who’s worked with S. Carey and Sufjan Stevens, added pedal steel to ‘Beyond The Dust’ and Jeremy Boettcher (who also performs with S. Carey) added double bass to ‘The Human Mosaic’, while Canadian songwriter Michael Feuerstack added backing vocals to ‘The Smallest Sliver’.

Otherwise, the album is all Samson’s own work, a testament to his desire to seek peace not just on record but in his life. A tribute to his inquisitive nature, ‘Paralanguage’ is also, ultimately, a memorial to his father, whose life shaped Samson’s own and whose tragic passing has now inadvertently yielded a source of magical consolation for us all. As the 30-year-old sings on ‘The Smallest Sliver’, “Sometimes my love feels too big for my body / So I have to let it go.” In doing so, Will Samson has allowed us all to share it.

Track Listing: Calescent / Beyond The Dust / Flowerbed / Triplet / Lacuna / The Human Mosaic / Ochre Alps / The Smallest Sliver

Label Review. 

2019 debut album. Rock. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Alt-Rock Chicago based musician Fran - aka Maria Jacobson - is releasing her debut album ‘A Private Picture’ and it is a journey that began when Fran taught herself guitar as a way to process change. Following a disillusioning season as a theatre actor and a few failed relationships, Jacobson took a job teaching English in Mexico, which afforded her the downtime to write. Returning to Chicaco, she formed a band—vulnerable, honest indie rock—which Buffablog recommends "for fans of Alvvays, Hop Along, or Jay Som."

The trick is to make a confession entertaining. ‘A Private Picture’ delivers a collection of extremely personal experiences that have been distilled and abstracted to the point that you can see yourself in their imagery, find analogs to your own emotional history in their scenarios ‘when you hear them, it’s a conversation.

It’s therapy, if therapy was allowed to turn you on and make you shake what you got. At its core, Fran’s music is about sharing a truth -’telling it, confessing it, yelling it’in the service of human connection. Or, as Jacobson puts it, ‘I feel that I am a songwriter for the same reason I wanted to be an actor. I want to tell the truth. I want to challenge myself to get closer and closer to the core of an experience, an emotion- I want to say it, sing it, in a way that says exactly what it is. I cry when I write songs because I am constantly making discoveries, about myself, about the world, about the best way to convey and connect and get closer.’

Track Listing: Now / Company / So Surreal / Time and Place / In My Own Time / (I Don’t Want You to Think) I’ve Moved On / A Private Picture / Desert Wanderer

Label Review.

2019 album. World music.

Our Overview.

‘Tsuumi Sound System is a critically acclaimed and widely respected world music band known for its crossover sound with jazz and modern pop influences. Blinking Light, their fourth studio album, represents an even stronger cross-genre style with hints of folk/rock and free jazz.

The sonic landscape is even more diverse than before. Tsuumi Sound System has gained a strong fan base among world music fans beyond it’s traditional Finnish audience. In recent years the band has performed regularly in Europe and at festivals in North America and Asia. “Blinking Light” refers to a lighthouse and a homeward journey, blinks of light in a middle of a busy life and the past as stars shining in the sky.

Three of the songs, Luotsi (The Port Pilot), The Blink and Wild Grasses form a title trilogy which was born out of thoughts of parenthood. Luotsi (The Port Pilot) tells about the choices of a travelling man and The Blink about returning home which, after all, is the best of everything. Wild Grasses is about free souls, who still have the world and life open before them. Composer Joakim Bergh ll, who lives on an island, whose lighthouse guides him home from his travels, sets all of this in a naval perspective.

Tsuumi Sound System regularly perform at world music festivals and tours. They have performed at the renowned Womex World Music Expo, at the acclaimed Malta World Music Festival, Shetland Folk Festival in Great Britain and at the San Antonio International Accordion Festival in Texas and many other prestigious festivals around Europe and the world.”

Track Listing: The Amazing Race / Luotsi / The Blink / Wild Grasses / Triolipolska / And Then There Were Three / Peut-Etre / Vekkula in Memoriam / Ball and Yarn / Ordinary Monday / Mimas

Label Review.

Early recordings.

Our Overview.

The industrial new wave cult act Cabaret Voltaire have announced the first-ever vinyl release of “Methodology ’74-’78. Attic Tapes”, which collates the band’s early recordings. Out on December 6, the 7-piece clear vinyl box set is a limited edition of 500 units worldwide and comes with an art print signed by Richard H. Kirk and it features early recordings of tracks such as “Nag Nag Nag” and “Do the Mussolini (Headkick)”.

‘Methodology ‘74 / ‘78 Attic Tapes’ charts the development of Cabaret Voltaire, starting from their early experimental period of 1974 / 1975. Included on the release are the original recordings of classics such as ‘Nag Nag Nag’, ‘No Escape’, ‘The Set Up’, ‘Baader Meinhof’, ‘Here She Comes Now’ and ‘Do The Mussolini (Headkick)’, all later re-recorded with new equipment and released by Rough Trade in the late 1970s.

Cabaret Voltaire were at the forefront of the UK Electronic Movement throughout the 1970s. Initially a three-piece, Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson began by playing around with recorded sounds manipulated by basic reel-to-reel tape recorders in Sheffield in 1973. Way ahead of their time, these ideas cumulated in 1975, when the three staged their first performance of these sound experiments and assumed the name Cabaret Voltaire, taken from the name of the club started in Zürich by the principals of the Dada art movement during the First World War. As part of the confrontational energy of punk and inspired by the Dada and Situationist art movements, these early recordings have lost none of their power in the intervening years, especially when the relatively primitive equipment used at that time is considered.

‘Methodology ‘74 / ‘78 Attic Tapes’ is an invaluable insight into how the band evolved prior to and during the punk explosion and how the music gradually took on a more structured and rhythmic form.

“A revelatory peak into a crucial electronic group’s embryonic stage, and a key chapter in electronic music’s evolution in the ’70s” - XLR8R

“A fascinating listen, the sound quality throughout is excellent” - All Music

Track Listing: 1. Exhaust 2. Synthi AKS (piece One) 3. Synthi AKS (Piece Two) 4. Jet Passing Over 5. Sad Synth 6. Treated Guitar 7. Treated Clarinet 8. Treated Drum Machine 9. Possibility Of A Bum Trip 10. Space Patrol 11. Jack Stereo Unit 12. Magnet 13. Counter Reaction 14. Capsules (Version) 15. Makes Your Mouth Go Funny 16. Dream Sequence Number Three (Short Version) 17. Reverse (Piece One) 18. Stolen From Spectra 19. Shes Black (Part One) 20. Jive 21. The Single 22. Speed Kills 23. Fascist Police State 24. Synthi AKS (Piece Three) 25. Data Processing Instructions 26. Fuse Mountain 27. Calling Moscow 28. Dream Sequence Number Two (Ethel’s Voice) 29. The Attic Tapes 30. Treated Speech 31. Dream Sequence Number Three (Long Version) 32. Henderson Reversed (Piece Two) 33. Bed Time Stories 34. Loves In Vein 35. Do The Mussolini (Head Kick) (They Kill Him Dub) 36. Shes Black (Part Two) 37. Its Not Music 38. Slo Change 39. Original Voice Of America 40. Heaven And Hell 41. Do The Mussolini (Head Kick) 42. Here She Comes Now 43. Capsules 44. Oh Roger 45. Havoc 46. Talkover 47. No Escape 48. Photophobia 49. The Set Up 50. A Minute Is A Life Time 51. Baader Meinhof 52. Nag Nag Nag 53. Its About Now

Label Review.

20 best of from the CBS years.

Our Overview.

In celebration of the legendary band’s 50th Anniversary, featuring a peerless collection of classics, including Uncut’s No.1 Glam single of all time “All The Young Dudes”.

Mott the Hoople occupies a unique place in the annals of international rock music. Oozing style, attitude and unpredictability, the band recorded a peerless legacy of songs combining homage, honesty and killer hooks. As Mott’s focal point, lead singer Ian Hunter was also one of the toughest and most inventive writers of the early Seventies.

Over the years, Mott the Hoople have been cited as an inspiration by Queen, The Clash, Kiss, Primal Scream, Motley Crue, Cheap Trick and Def Leppard, whose frontman Joe Elliott remains a devoted fan. Mott reunited for several live appearances in 2009 and 2013 and toured the UK and America in 2019. The band are also releasing ‘Live at Hammersmith 1973’ via Madfish, which features their legendary riotous set as a double LP with six tracks appearing on vinyl for the first time.

‘The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ showcases Mott the Hoople’s amazing CBS Records repertoire including the Bowie penned No.3 anthem ‘All the Young Dudes’ which gave the band their mainstream break before they released the masterly Mott. The new 2LP set also includes the hit singles ‘Honaloochie Boogie’ (No.12), ‘All The Way From Memphis’ (No.10), ‘Roll Away The Stone’ (No.8) and ‘The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll’, as well as the superb ‘Marionette’ - a pre-Bohemian Rhapsody mini-opera described by Ian Hunter as a nervous breakdown on record.

This essential 50th-anniversary double vinyl album is presented in gatefold packaging complete with printed inner bags featuring original artwork for the classic LP’s ‘All The Young Dudes’, ‘Mott’ and ‘The Hoople’, plus liner notes written by Mott the Hoople and Ian Hunter biographer Campbell Devine.

“Mott the Hoople was the greatest rock’n’roll band ever.” - JOE ELLIOTT (DEF LEPPARD)

“Raw, fun, angry, glorious and jagged... Mott was everything.” - BRIAN MAY (QUEEN)

“If it hadn’t been for Mott, there would be no us” - MICK JONES (THE CLASH)

Label Review.

Official live collection consisting of tracks recorded 1992-95, none of which have ever been released as studio recordings. Curated by David Lemieux, the band's archivist, this is the nearest we'll get to what the Dead's next studio album, following 'Built To Last' in 1989, might have been like had Jerry Garcia not passed in 1995. Also available on Vinyl.

Our Overview.

The legendary Haight-Ashbury sextet - that formed in 1965 and who took a long strange trip from acid-testing jugband to worldwide countercultural institution - the Grateful Dead are proud to announce the release of ‘Ready Or Not’. This album is an unprecedented collection, curated by David Lemieux, the band’s archivist, which is a stirring conclusion to the Grateful Dead's three-decade career, music filled with adventure and possibility, big questions, big punchlines, and cosmic wisdom...  featuring nine unreleased live versions of late-period Grateful Dead songs that debuted in 1992 and 1993, a reflection of what could have been the band's next official studio album.

Maybe you were lucky enough and caught a glimpse of what might have been. You swayed to the unfamiliar, floating along with an unknown melody, joining in for a chorus when you felt confident you had it down. Maybe you jotted a fat question mark in your meticulous setlist, certain you'd figure it out before the next show, anticipating a formal introduction in due time.As if their repertoire wasn't tall enough to reach the endless sky, the band began adding new tunes to their sets in 1992, working them into "quintessential Grateful Dead romps," with the intention of a new studio album. By the mid-90s, they set out recording with the wisdom of Willie Dixon's blues, Neil Young's fuzzed-out guitar, newcomer Vince Welnick's tried-and-true sketches, and Bobby reunited with Robert Hunter on a duo that had quickly become fan-favorites. Alas, it was not meant to be. Until now.

The Grateful Dead were known for their unique and eclectic songwriting style which fused elements of rock, folk music, bluegrass, blues, country and jazz and also for live performances of long modal jams. This stunning album consist of tracks debuted in 1992-93, none of which have ever been released as studio recordings. Including tracks such as ‘Days Between’, ‘Easy Answers’ and ‘So Many Roads’, this album includes some of their best live performances, all mastered from the original digital soundboard tapes. The album track list mirrors what would have been the Grateful Dead’s next studio album, following ‘Built To Last’ in 1989, had Jerry Garcia not passed in 1995.

Label Review. 

From 1962 to 1970, The Beatles released 22 UK singles; of those 44 A and B-side tracks, 29 were not included on the group’s British albums at that time. These singles, plus an exclusive new double A-side single for the mid-1990s-issued tracks Free As A Bird and Real Love, are newly cut for vinyl from their original mono and stereo master tapes by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios for a new limited edition boxed set. The Beatles: The Singles Collection presents 46 tracks on 23 180-gram seven-inch vinyl singles in faithfully reproduced international picture sleeves, accompanied by a 40-page booklet with photos, ephemera, and detailed essays by Beatles historian Kevin Howlett.

Our Overview. 

There have been seven inch singles collections of The Beatles before but this one beats all! Containing just the officially sanctioned singles the Beatles released during their lifespan plus the two mid-1990s ‘reunion’ tracks as a bonus double A side, all in glorious colour picture sleeves from around the world, this definitely the one to have.

Every single the Fab Four released had something new to offer and in some cases broke new ground. Wailing harmonicas on the first three: “Love Me Do”, Please Please Me” and “From Me To You” to the “Yeah Yeah Yeahs” of “She Loves You” - all uttered a new vibrancy to pop couched in the vocal prowess of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. By the time of “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, four track recording had entered Abbey Road and the band began to spend more time workshopping their songs, honing them for new angles. Less obvious chord changes and massed vocals classified their breakthrough US hit. Was it “I can’t hide” or “I get high” they were singing? Hard to tell with Lennon’s lo-fi rhythm guitar chopping underneath the recording.

1964 saw more advancements - acoustic guitars began to come into mix and they began to make their song intros distinctive too with the massive unclassifiable chord at the start of “A Hard Day’s Night” and the squeal of feedback that brings in “I Feel Fine” which then tumbles into a latin beat from Ringo after Lennon’s cracking riff. The following year saw them break the three minute mark for the first time with the dense and clanging “Ticket To Ride” whilst “Help!” - Lennon’s fourth consecutive A-side saw perhaps his most personal lyric yet married to a happy go lucky backing. Their first double A side was a cracker: “Day Tripper” had a riff to die for as well as it’s early drug allusion. “We Can Work It Out” saw Lennon and McCartney merge two completely different songs together for the greater good with its pumping harmonium and juxtaposing lyrics.

The end of their Beatlemania period saw the group rip roaring through “Paperback Writer” with its saturated guitar tone and electronic echo effects. It’s B-side “Rain” saw them meddling with backward tapes for the first time. They also played it fast and then slowed the tape down for the mixdown giving the song a draggy, murky feel. Another double A side pulled from their ‘Revolver’ album saw “Yellow Submarine” with all its sound effects and perfect vocal from Ringo coupled with Macca’s dark “Eleanor Rigby” punctuated with its staccato string backing arranged by their producer George Martin.

Retiring from touring their first studio bound single was another double A side. Acclaimed by many to be the greatest two sided single released ever: “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” saw Lennon and McCartney at their best, recorded at the beginning of the sessions which then produced the little known (!) ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ album. Their next single, Lennon’s “All You Need Is Love” was written for and performed during the worlds first satellite TV broadcast in June 1967. “Hello Goodbye” saw out 1967 in a simple, catchy style from McCartney’s pen. Paul was in command for four in row as he also wrote “Lady Madonna”, “Hey Jude” and “Get Back” during the period when The Beatles began to unravel. By 1969 they were still scoring big hits from “The Ballad Of John & Yoko” to George’s first A-side “Something” before they wrapped things up with the appropriate “Let It Be”.

That would be it until 1995 when McCartney, Harrison and Starr reunited to work on a couple of Lennon demos and turn them into proper songs under the name The Beatles. Produced by ELO’s Jeff Lynne, the two songs were a fine epilogue to the biggest band the world had ever seen.

Label Review.

2019 album. Blues rock.

Our Overview.

’Flesh And Bones’ is the new album from 24 PESOS, contemporary blues band based in London, UK, who are a simply a unique and powerful live band that play great music. The sound they create together is a blistering energetic and joyous experience always musically enthralling and deeply personal. Established in 2009 , The band have been Nominated 10 times at the British blues awards and have released 4 critically acclaimed albums.

This new album features 12 tracks about life and death, love and pain and the simple comedy of plain ordinary people. It also features some very special guest appearances from the likes of Geno Washington , Marcus Malone , Giles Robson, Jj Milteau , Danny Del Toro and Katie Hector who all leave their prestigious mark. “Flesh & Bones” has got no filler tracks and will leave a large joyous musical footprint in anyones playlist “24 Pesos” comes at you full Throttle with a foot to the floor take no prisoners kind of attitude... kicking biting and snapping like a piranha fish on steroids infecting you withthey’re soulful Stax laced funky Blues.!! simply an oblix of a band , With 5 albums under their belt and many miles covered on the road, 24 Pesos are once again , ready to roll!!!

Label Review. 

2019 album. Leonard’s son, Adam Cohen, produced and masterminded the project, enlisting a huge cast of musicians including Damien Rice and Leslie Feist (vocals), Arcade Fire bassist Richard Reed Parry, the National’s Bryce Dessner on guitar, Dustin O’Halloran on piano, and Leonard’s bandmate Javier Mas playing the man’s own guitar. Plus Beck (on guitar and Jew’s harp), Daniel Lanois, Jennifer Warnes, the s t a r g a z e orchestra, and others. Also available on vinyl. 

Our Overview. 

Seven months after his father passed, Adam Cohen retreated to a converted garage in his backyard down the street from Leonard’s house, to work with his father again, to stay in the company of his voice. From their previous collaboration on ‘You Want It Darker’ there remained bare musical sketches, at times little more than vocals. Leonard had asked his son to bring these works to completion.

This remarkable new album was made in many places. Javier Mas, the great Spanish laud player who accompanied Leonard on stage for the last eight years of touring, flew from Barcelona to Los Angeles to capture the artist’s spirit on Leonard’s own guitar. In Berlin, at a musical event called People Festival, Adam invited friends and comrades to lend their ears and talents. Damien Rice and Leslie Feist sang. Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire played bass. Bryce Dessner of The National played guitar, the composer Dustin O’Halloran played piano. The Berlin-based choir Cantus Domus sang, and the s t a r g a z e orchestra played. In Montrealthe famed producer Daniel Lanois dropped in, beautifully enriching sparse arrangements. The Shaar Hashomayim choir, who played such important part of the sound of the last album, contributed to a song, and Patrick Watson brought his inimitable talent as co-producer to a song. Back in Los Angeles Jennifer Warnes, one of the keepers of Leonard’s flame, sang background vocals, and Beck contributed on guitar and Jew’s harp. Michael Chaves, who elegantly recorded and mixed ‘You Want It Darker’, did the engineering and mixing.

And so was born ‘Thanks For The Dance’, a brand new Leonard Cohen album that uncannily recalls the essence of his sound.“In composing and arranging the music for his words, we chose his most characteristic musical signatures, in this way keeping him with us,” said Adam Cohen. “What moves me most about the album is the startled response of those who have heard it. ‘Leonard lives’! they say, one after the other.”‘Thanks for the Dance’ is an unexpected blessing, a gift of beauty and strength. Leonard Cohen’s voice has not been stilled. The dance goes on.

Label Review. 

2019 album. Double album presented in two halves: Sunrise and Sunset. Also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

Coldplay are releasing their eighth studio album ‘Everyday Life’ and this one is a biggie to delight fans worldwide. The album, containing 16 tracks is a double album, inclusive of two parts with the first half titled ‘Sunrise’ and the other ‘Sunset’. So it seems to be a conceptual double-LP, a la the Smashing Pumpkins’ sprawling 1995 effort “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” (which was divided into “Dawn to Dusk” and “Twilight to Starlight” discs). 

Coldplay announced the news of the imminent album in a letter sent to fans, calling the album "sort of how we feel about things” and frontman Chris Martin spoke with BBC Radio 1 about the concept behind the album; “there is a lot of trouble, but there’s also so much positivity and so much great life happening…Sunset and Sunrise could mean the same thing. Because after every sunset, there is a sunrise.”

Alongside their marketing activities to promote the album - following a social media teaser campaign - the Brit pop-rock group started teasing its upcoming album with a series of vintage-looking posters which appeared in Berlin and Hong Kong. The announcement, styled like an old, typed postcard, reads:

“dear friends, my typing isn’t very good, i’m sorry i and we hope wherever you are you’re ok for the last 100 years or thereabouts we have been working on a thing called Everyday Life in the classifieds you might write “double album for sale, one very careful owner” one half is called “sunrise,” the other “sunset”
it comes out 22 november. it is sort of how we feel about things
we send much love to you from hibernation chris, jonny, guy and Will Champion esq.”

The ‘Everyday Life’ album cover features the band in an old-fashioned black and white photo which fans may recognize from the picture they previously shared on their social media earlier in the week. The cover art is actually based on a photo from 1919 featuring Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland's great-grandfather's band (music runs in the family!).

Among various world cities and unveiled the track list of its highly anticipated new double album, 'Everyday Life', in classified advertisements Wednesday in newspapers on opposite sides of the world, one in Wales and two in Australia. The ads in the North Wales Daily Post, Sydney Morning Herald and The West Australian are the latest in a string of hints from the band to build buzz around their new album. Coldplay certainly has a connection with North Wales: Lead guitarist Jonny Buckland hails from Pantymwyn, near Mold, and has been active in the community. Buckland also previously said that he had a holiday job working at the North Wales Daily Post.

Label Review. 

Assembles all four complete concerts from New Year’s Eve 1969 and New Year’s Day 1970 presented in their original performance sequence. These tracks were selected for the album ‘Band Of Gypsys’. Official.

Our Overview. 

Over the course of four extraordinary years, Jimi Hendrix placed his indelible stamp upon popular music with breathtaking velocity. Measured alongside his triumphs at Monterey Pop and Woodstock, Hendrix’s legendary Fillmore East concerts illustrated a critical turning point in a radiant career filled with indefinite possibilities.

The revolutionary impact Jimi Hendrix, Billy Cox and Buddy Miles had upon the boundaries and definitions of rock, R&B, and funk can be traced to four concerts over the course of two captivating evenings. These performances were first celebrated by Band of Gypsys, which featured six songs from the two January 1, 1970 concerts, including “Machine Gun,” the album’s dramatic centerpiece. Issued in April 1970, ‘Band of Gypsys’ challenged and surprised the wide following of Jimi Hendrix with its extended arrangements and vibrant mix of rock and soul.

Their debut live performances were a series of four concerts at the Fillmore East in Manhattan – two on New Year’s Eve 1969 and two on New Year’s Day 1970, each of which were professionally recorded. Hendrix had sold out Madison Square Garden just nine months prior, but the Fillmore East was chosen as the setting for a live recording. Long before his fame, Hendrix had signed what he thought was a release for appearing as a studio musician in October 1965. Unfortunately, the one page artist agreement drafted by PPX Industries bound his services for a period of three years. Unwilling to live hands tied, Hendrix agreed to a 1968 legal settlement whereby Capitol Records would be granted the distribution rights for his next album. By the autumn of 1969, Capitol and PPX were pushing hard for the album delivery and Hendrix decided to give them a live album.

However stressful this legal obligation had been for the guitarist, the end result proved to be an artistic triumph. True to his unpredictability, Hendrix opened his four-show stint with a masterful, eleven song set that did not feature a single song he had commercially released. Exciting new songs such as “Izabella,” “Ezy Ryder” and “Burning Desire” thrilled the sold-out house. Hendrix would pepper the remaining three shows with supercharged reworkings of favorites such as “Stone Free,” “Purple Haze,” and “Fire” but these were presented alongside such devastating, newly developed fare as “Machine Gun.” In his review of the second New Year’s Eve concert, Down Beat critic Chris Albertson wrote, “That ability of his to utilize fully the technical possibilities of his instrument, combined with his fertile musical imagination, makes him an outstanding performer.”

The original 1970 Band of Gypsys album was edited and sequenced from songs performed during the two Fillmore sets on January 1, 1970. Subsequent collections mined more material from each of the performances with significant chunks of these phenomenal recordings from those nights sitting unreleased for almost half a century. Newly mixed and restored in sequence without edits, fans can finally hear Hendrix, Cox and Miles blast through their genre-defying sets that included freshly written songs like “Earth Blues” and “Stepping Stone,” as well as Experience favorites inclusive of “Foxey Lady,” “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” “Wild Thing,” “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze.” Additionally, exciting new versions of Howard Tate’s “Stop,” “Steal Away,” by Jimmy Hughes and a searing “Bleeding Heart” by Elmore James highlighted the command that the trio had over blues & R&B music.

Label Review. 

2019 album also available on CD.

Our Overview. 

After years as a struggling outsider musician, American singer-songwriter Beck came to prominence in the mid-90s with his hit “Loser” (1994) and has been a mainstay of popular culture ever since. And now the artist known for his pop-junk culture collage of musical styles, ironic lyrics, samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and heady sound effects is releasing his new album “Hyperspaces’ - along with a cryptic message: “In hyperspace electric life is in my brain.” The new release, which follows the Grammy-winning ‘Colours’ from 2017, features collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Chris Martin, Sky Ferreira, Greg Kurstin and more.

The albums artwork featuring Beck standing in front of a vintage car, with the album title spelt out in Japanese above him, the artwork has a ‘Back To The Future’ vibe that suggests Beck will once again take listeners on a wild journey through myriad styles in the way that only he can. As he explained the album was inspired by the 80s video game Asteroids: “It had a button where you were about to get destroyed called Hyperspace, that would save your life,” he said, adding that, on the album, “Each song has kind of a different way that different people hyperspace, or deal with the world.”

Despite its intergalactic title, Beck recently told attendees of a London album playback that ‘Hyperspace’ is “not really anything about outer space. It’s more of an interior space… The meditation of the record is finding peace in moment. I was thinking about music as a kind of escape… It sort of alters the room, alters a state of mind… every song does something different — it can be an escape from the moment.”

Beck has recently treated eager fans to the record’s first single, “Saw Lightning”. The new track sees Beck teaming up with Pharrell Williams, who provided songwriting and production assistance, as well as contributions on drums, keyboards, and mumbled vocals. The new tune bridges Beck's older folksier material and his more dancy tracks by blending jangly guitar riffs with percussive beats while he oscillates between bluesy and more hip-hop inspired vocal phrasing. As to be expected from the minds of these two genre-bending musicians, “Saw Lightning” is a quirky fusion of rock, synths, and even folk pop.

In an interview with NME, Beck said that he had always wanted to make a record with Williams, but the opportunity didn’t arise until after his tour in support of ‘Colors’. The duo originally planned on recording an EP before the sessions proved fruitful enough to lay the foundation of an album; Williams worked on seven of ‘Hyperspace‘s’ 11 tracks.

“I was not expecting the songs to come out how they did. I was going in thinking of songs like ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, y’know?” Beck told NME. “He felt very strongly that spending a little time with me, that ‘You need to be doing singer-songwriter type of songs’. So that was more of the direction we went in. I really tried to be less ambitious on the production on these songs, like to let them be simple and let them breathe. Pharrell is a master minimalist.”